Midwife found at airport after being ordered to pay $6.6 million over botched home birth

Akal Khalsa, who botched the delivery of a baby boy, leaving him severely disabled.

A midwife ordered by a court to pay $6.6 million to a boy who developed cerebral palsy as a result of a botched home birth has been arrested at Sydney airport trying to leave the country on a one-way ticket.

Authorities detained Akal Kaur Khalsa on Tuesday morning as she attempted to board a flight to Wellington, New Zealand, using a business class ticket and an Italian passport in the name of Margaret Maree Saviane.

Last year the NSW Supreme Court upheld a civil claim against Ms Khalsa brought by the mother of Will Patterson, a six-year-old Sydney boy who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy as a result of his home birth in November 2006.

A warrant was issued in June for Ms Khalsa's arrest after she failed to attend a hearing regarding the freezing of her assets.

Ms Khalsa was taken from the airport and bought before Justice Peter Garling, who remanded her in the custody of the Department of Corrective Services for failing to comply with a series of court orders.

Justice Garling said the two passports in Ms Khalsa's possession showed she had been to Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand and India in the past six months. He said she was a "serious flight risk" as documents she was carrying showed she had organised a house in New Zealand, future travel to Fiji and had withdrawn $35,000 in cash.

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If released, it was likely she would not turn up in court for an examination of her financial situation on Thursday, he said.

Ms Khalsa did not defend the case brought against her by the Pattersons. Justice Garling found she had been negligent in both recommending and carrying out the home birth. He ordered her to pay $6.6 million in damages to assist with the lifetime of care Will.

The boy suffered a loss of oxygen to the brain and body during the "protracted and complex" birth.

In October last year, Ms Khalsa was found guilty of professional misconduct and unsatisfactory professional conduct over a different home birth.

The Nursing and Midwifery Tribunal found she had failed to properly care for and manage the baby - who had a ruptured umbilical cord, persistent low temperature and could not feed - for more than 15 hours before the baby was admitted to Manly Hospital in January 2011.

The tribunal also found Ms Khalsa, who is aged in her late 60s, failed to make proper clinical records and later submitted a second set of records that were false or misleading.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency website indicates that Ms Khalsa remains registered as a midwife, though with the designation "non-practising". She is also registered to practise as a nurse without any limitations.

Ms Khalsa was in private practice as a midwife for more than 34 years until March 2011 and worked as a casual nurse at the Royal Hospital for Women at Randwick for about 10 years until October 2012.